Yesterday they unveiled the stature of Muffet McGraw in front o the Joyce Center, you can watch the video on the ND site. The game was with Purdue the team she beat for her 1st Nat'l Championship. They won handily by more then 30 points. They are playing short handed with several players out including Sonia Citron who was off to a great start before her injury. She's an AA type of player. Of course Olivia Miles has not played this year and there is no indication from Coach when she might be ready to play again. Freshman Emma Risch also highly recruited is out with an undisclosed injury The bright light in all of this is Nat Marshall a highly recrutied post player who has been derailed by injuries and rehab is starting to show why she was highly recruited. She's been a spark off the bench.
Wow, it's everywhere and it's seems to be more than a rumor. It certainly will make many Irish fans happy to see him go, and the next thing is who will replace him. I am assuming that our QB coach will be the OCoord for the Sun Bowl. Will he get the regular job? If he does that'll piss off a lot of fans for sure as they want the Irish to open the pocketbook and find the best OCoord available out there. Who that might be is up in the air, I have no idea who Freeman is thinking about of course. Big surprise to me for sure.
I have to wonder what is going around in C J Carr's mind as he gets ready to sign his LOI this Wed. He gave his verbal to Tommy Rees, and didn't decommit when Rees left for Alabama and unknown Gerard Parker was named OCoord. Now he'll not even know who his OCoord will be when he signs his LOI on Wed.
Mike Denbrock seems to be a name that is coming up a lot. Kelly just went to LSU to get him more money to keep him from leaving for Texas A*M. I don't know though if ND is willing to pay more than LSU, we'll see.
Painful basketball game to watch tonight. The Citadel a Southern Conference team came into the Joyce as 9 point dogs and beat the Irish handily by 20 points. It was close for a half then they just crushed us in the 2nd half. We have to be the worst shooting team in college basketball, we only scored 16 points in the 2nd half and were 3-24 from 3pt land and shot 26% from the field This team isn't going to win 10 games this year. They have Marist coming in on Friday and I'm not sure we can beat those guys. They are having a good season in the MAAC. We were preseason dead last in the ACC and I can't see us doing better than that.
Irish announce Loren Landow as the new head of Strength and Conditioning. Landow is a world-renowned strength and conditioning expert with over 25 years of extensive experience at all levels of elite athlete training. He served as the head strength and conditioning coach for the Denver Broncos from 2018-2023, and owns and directs Landow Performance in Centennial, Colorado, working with thousands of athletes in all sports to prepare for professional and amateur competition, including NFL, NHL, MLB, UFC, WNBA and Olympic medalists. Notre Dame Tabs Loren Landow As Trematerra Family Director Of Football Performance
Still no white smoke on the new OCoord. I have a funny feeling that now matter who it is that 50% of the online fans will be outraged and blame Jack Swarbrick for such a lame hire.
National signing day. Gurus say they are not expecting any drama. Only 3 have not sent in the LOI Only waiting on S Kennedy Urlacher (Mountain Time), LB Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa and WR Logan Saldate (Pacific Time) What is amazing to me is that 15 are expected to be early enrollees. I remember when Charlie Weis had to beg to get ND admission to allow it
Marcus Freeman fired up about getting Riley Leonard. Marcus Freeman wasn’t concerned with finding a pro-style quarterback or a dual-threat quarterback in the transfer portal. The Notre Dame head coach wasn’t even concerned with finding a signal-caller who fit the Irish offense. What he was looking for, he’s convinced he found in Riley Leonard. “He was the best quarterback that we believed was in the Portal,” Freeman said during his National Signing Day press conference on Wednesday. “To me, you get the best players first and then you say, 'OK, how do we tailor what we do around those guys?' That is so important. “We were saying, 'OK, as we look to take another quarterback to add to this program, who's the best one that fits this place?' I've always said that, right? 'The best one that fits this place and then how do we tailor what we do offensively around those guys?' I think that's the situation more than anything with Riley.” Freeman knew plenty about Leonard as a player from facing him earlier this year at Duke. “He's a complete quarterback,” Freeman said. “Number one, he's competitive. I don't want that to be a word that's just thrown out there lightly. That's something that I have a lot of respect for, how competitive you are. You see it by the way he plays in short-yardage situations, his ability to put his shoulder down and say, 'I'm not going to be denied.' “But then in the passing game, he can make every single throw. He's accurate, but he also can extend plays with his legs and now he has a true ability to make you respect him by pulling the ball in some of those zone read situations. What it does is puts the defense at conflict.” As a sophomore in 2022, Leonard rushed for 700 yards and 13 touchdowns. Freeman believes that dual-threat ability will open up the Irish’s offense. “You're not just saying, 'Hey, we'll react to the quarterback keeping the ball,’” he continued. “You have to have a defender accounting for the quarterback. So what does that do? It opens up things in the pass game because you got an extra defender trying to stop the run with a quarterback. When you have the ability to run the ball as a quarterback, it puts the defense in conflict, in difficult situations.” While the Irish weren’t overly concerned with the style of quarterback they were bringing in, they were very intentful in the type of person he was. “He is an unbelievable teammate,” Freeman said. “He's still with his team at Duke. He's going to be with them until they finish their bowl game and he's not even playing right now. and he knows he's not playing. But he wants to be with those guys and finish off the season. That speaks volumes of who he is as a person. “He makes those guys around him better. Those can be through his actions in terms of leadership, but also through his decision-making. He is a great young person. He is a great young man, great parents, a special football player.”
They have been doing these since Freeman took over on various topics, the Shirt, the unveiling of alternate uniforms for Shamrock Series games or big games (Ohio State). Here's the one on the recruiting class. Please note that Girard Parker is not in it and somebody said they think that he's been CGI'd out of it and that in order to release it today it had to be made awhile ago. Not bad, not great, doesn't move the needle for me. But hey that's just me.
Not quite what is needed to compete for a National Championship, but things are headed in the right direction
Just wonder what if any impact Hartman had on Leonard's decision. I still think of Sam after the Duke game waiting around to see Leonard. I thought that was a little unusual.
Well Sam seemed to truly enjoy being a ND student athlete. I doubt if he achieved his goals this season and I don't expect him to even be drafted. But I would imagine that Leonard reached out to Sam about his Notre Dame experience and Sam likely told him to come and that he wouldn't regret it.
Wallingford (Conn.) Choate Rosemary Hall offensive tackle Will Blackannounced his commitment to Notre Dame Thursday afternoon, giving the Irish an impressive four-star pledge to add to its double-digit list of verbals in the 2025 class.
Irish women won their 9th straight, dominating Western Michigan tonight and super frosh Hannah Hildalgo had a triple double. Off now till New Years Even when they open ACC play with Syracuse.
Well it's Mike Denbrock back to Notre Dame as the new OCoord. It will be a mixed response from the fanbase. Mostly because he's associated with Kelly. The criticism will be that his big success was when he had a Heisman Trophy winner in Jayden Daniels. One thing that is clear though is I don't believe this is about the money, I'm sure that LSU could afford to pay him whatever it takes. It's about Denbrock wanting to be back at Notre Dame. All the reports are that he loved the culture of Notre Dame football.
Denbrock returning is a HUGE get for Notre Dame and Freeman. Like you Terry, I don’t think it was about the money. He genuinely loves ND. He’s also turned down big money from Tex A&M He is exactly to OC ND needs for the style of QB play that MF wants. After the bad news we kept getting the week after Stanford game it’s been a great couple of weeks since. Now, let’s go kick some Beaver butt in the Sun Bowl!! Go Irish!!!